White Room: Mark Barrow

White Columns is pleased to present the first solo exhibition by the New York-based artist Mark Barrow (b. 1982). Barrow’s installation consists of a group of five recent painted works (one produced in collaboration with Sarah Parke). Exploring the material relations and properties of paint and support, Barrow’s deceptively modest works consider the possibilities and potentiality of process-based abstraction. Employing an informal approach to formalism, Barrow’s works suggest an eccentric progeny that might include such key figures as Agnes Martin, Blinky Palermo, and the ‘Supports/Surfaces’ group of the 1970s, alongside more recent practitioners such as Tomma Abts or Xylor Jane. Using the underlying physical structure of his supports (typically coarse linen) as a kind of ‘map’ Barrow’s subsequent decision making processes and hand-painted interventions are always clearly revealed. In the collaborative work (made with Parke) Barrow has, for the first time, begun to create his own hand-loomed supports, further complicating the entanglement between gesture, mark, paint, and surface.
White Columns was introduced to Mark Barrow’s work by the independent curator Clarissa Dalrymple, who included him in her 2007 group exhibition “Looking Back: The White Columns Annual.” He graduated with an MFA from Yale in 2006. His work has recently been included in group shows at Moti Hasson Gallery, New York; Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; and Lisa Cooley Gallery, New York (all 2008.)